PCDF funders visited completed projects in Guadalcanal
A team comprised of officers from the European Union, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the New Zealand Government, the Integrated Economic Development and Community Resilience (IEDCR) Project Management Unit, the Provincial Governance Strengthening Program (PGSP), and the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) visited a few completed Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) projects in Guadalcanal Province.
The visit on May 22nd, 2024, took the team to Tenaru School to see the boy’s dormitory, Rate School Hall, Chichinge Rural Health Centre, and Guadalcanal Women’s Resources Center at Henderson. The projects are in the Malango Ward of Central Guadalcanal.
The visit enabled the donor officials to see firsthand the completed projects. The PGSP, with its development and governance-funding vehicle, the PCDF, is a testament to the unwavering support from the Solomon Islands Government and donors. The program spent SBD1, 670,149.32 on the Tenaru School Boys Dormitory, SBD605, 466.75 on Rate School Hall, and SBD 1,487,758 for Chichinge Rural Health Centre, and SBD759, 231 for Guadalcanal Women Resources Center. It may be recalled that in phase I of PGSP (2008 – 2014), RAMSI, the EU, UNCDF, UNDP, and SIG funded the programme to the tune of USD 18.1m.
From 2015 – 2021, the SIG sustained the PCDF until PGSP Phase II proper, began in 2022 with the inclusion of the World Bank-funded Integrated Economic Development and Community Resilience (IEDCR). UNDP and UNICEF through the EU, UNCDF that focuses on Local Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) with support from the New Zealand Government and the European Union, and UNDP in Fiji’s Governance for Resilience, also fund the IEDCR.
For LoCAL, a UNCDF-funded program supporting the PCDF, the visit was a look to see how their forthcoming projects will be implemented now that their funded program is about to roll out. While at Tenaru School boy’s dormitory, the caretaker school principal Mr. Sixtus Winduo took time and explained the impact of climate change during intense flooding and the school’s lack of ability to do anything about it. He informed the delegation that during most flooding events, most of the classrooms are inundated and students had to be moved to second floor classrooms and dormitories until water receded.
LoCAL, the new funding stream for the nine provinces will use all the principles from the PCDF in terms of planning, budgeting, procurement, flow of funds, and the minimum access conditions. LoCAL will provide top-up funding for adaptation aspects of resilient infrastructure and fund climate-change-adaptation projects. Funding from LoCAL through UNCDF shall be available to provinces for the first time in the 2024/25 fiscal year.
LoCAL will support the SIG and the Provincial Governments (PGs) to strengthen and mainstream climate change adaptation considerations in all phases of the project implementation cycle. These grants will support activities that contribute directly to building climate resilience and developing climate change adaptation capacity at both community and PG levels.
Importantly, prior to the visit, on May 21, the team made a courtesy call to the office of the Premier of Guadalcanal Province, Hon. Willie Atu.
END